The Vatican Information Service is a news service, founded in the Holy See Press Office, that provides information about the Magisterium and the pastoral activities of the Holy Father and the Roman Curia...[+]

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Thursday, June 6, 2013

Vatican
City, 6 June 2013
(VIS) – “You are preparing for a particular ministry of
commitment … a task that requires … great inner freedom,” Pope
Francis said this morning to the 45 members of the Pontifical
Ecclesiastical Academy whom he received this morning in the
Clementine Hall of the Vatican Apostolic Palace, with their
president, Archbishop Beniamino Stella. It is the institution that
trains candidates for the Holy See's diplomatic service.

In
his address to the group, the Holy Father urged the current students
to: “live these years of your preparation with commitment,
generosity, and greatness of soul, so that this freedom can truly
take shape in you!” The Pope explained that, first of all, this
freedom “means being free from personal projects: from some of the
concrete ways that, perhaps one day, you imagined living your
priesthood, from planning the future; from the perspective of staying
a long time in 'your' place of pastoral action. It means making
yourselves free, in some way, even from the culture and the mentality
that you came from, not to forget it and even less to deny it, but to
open yourselves, in charity, to understanding diverse cultures and
meeting persons belonging to worlds that are even very far removed
from your own.”

“Above
all, it means being vigilant in order to be free from personal
ambitions or aims, which can cause so much harm to the Church, taking
care to always put, not your own fulfilment or the recognition that
you could receive within and outside of the ecclesial community, but
the greater good of the Gospel cause and the fulfilment of the
mission that you will be entrusted with. … The ministry that you
are preparing for asks you to go out of yourselves, a self-detachment
that can only be achieved through an intense spiritual journey and a
serious unification of the life around you to the mystery of God's
love and to the inscrutable plan of his call.”

“We
can live the freedom from our plans and our will not as a reason for
frustration or emptiness, but as an openness to God's superabundant
gift, which makes our priesthood fruitful. In this way, the Holy
Father asked them to take great care of their spiritual lives, the
source of that inner freedom, by “cultivating a life of prayer and
by making your daily work the gym of your sanctification”.

Francis
reminded those present of the words of Blessed John XXIII: “The
more mature I grow in years and experience, the more I recognize that
the surest way to make myself holy and to succeed in the service of
the Holy See lies in the constant effort to reduce everything … to
the utmost simplicity and tranquillity … and concentrate on what is
truth, justice, and charity, above all charity. Any other way of
behaving is nothing but affectation and self-assertion; it soon shows
itself in its true colours and becomes a hindrance and a mockery.”

In
his own words, the Pope then mentioned the sisters who carry out
their service amongst the Academy's students. “They are good
Mothers who accompany you with prayer, with their simple and
essential words, and above all by their example of loyalty,
dedication, and love.” He also thanked the lay personnel that work
at the house “with their hidden yet important presence that allows
you to live your time at the Academy serenely and committedly.” On
concluding the audience, the Holy Father invited them to undertake
their service to the Holy See with the same spirit as Blessed John
XXIII, asked them to pray for him, and entrusted them to the Virgin
Mary and their patron, St. Anthony Abbot.

Vatican
City, 6 June 2013
(VIS) – In a note released today, the Prefecture of the Pontifical
Household announced that, during the summer period, all private and
special audiences will be suspended. The Wednesday general audiences
of 3,10, 17, and 31 July are likewise suspended and will resume again
from 7 August. On Sunday, 14 July, the Holy Father will pray the
Angelus from the Apostolic Palace of Castel Gandolfo. From Monday, 22
July, to Monday, 29 July, the Holy Father will travel to Brazil for
the 28th World Youth Day.

Director
of the Holy See Press Office, Fr. Federico Lombardi, S.J., explained
this morning that the pontiff's normal residence for the summer
period will continue to be the Domus Sanctae Marthae, even if he will
occasionally travel to Castel Gandolfo, as for the Sunday Angelus on
14 July. Further, the morning Masses in the chapel of the Domus will
be suspended from 7 July.

Vatican
City, 31 May 2013
(VIS) – “Welcoming Christ in Refugees and Forcibly Displaced
Persons” is the title of the document prepared by the Pontifical
Councils for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant Peoples and
"Cor Unum", which was presented this morning at a press
conference in the Holy See Press Office. Speaking at the conference
were Cardinal Antonio Maria Veglio and Cardinal Robert Sarah,
respectively presidents of the two dicasteries. Also participating in
the presentation were: Mr. Johan Ketelers, secretary general of the
International Catholic Migration Commission (CICM) and Dr. Katrine
Camilleri, assistant director of Jesuit Refugee Service Malta and
recipient of the 2007 Nansen Refugee Award (United Nations Refugee
Award, ACNUR-UNHCR).

“Our
document,” explained Cardinal Veglio, “is a pastoral guide that
starts from a fundamental premise, ... which is that every policy,
initiative, or intervention in this area must be guided by the
principle of the centrality and dignity of every human person. …
Indeed, this is the pivot of the Church's social doctrine:
'individual human beings are the foundation, the cause and the end of
every social institution'. Refugees, asylum seekers, and the forcibly
displaced, therefore, are persons whose dignity must be protected,
indeed, it must be the absolute priority. This is why the document
recalls the rights granted to each refugee, which promote the
individuals' well-being. These are well described in the 1951 Refugee
Convention.”

“Governments
must respect these rights while further [rights to be extended] to
the people involved in forced migration must be studied. Protection
must be guaranteed to all who live under conditions of forced
migration, taking into account their specific needs, which can vary
from a residency permit for victims of human trafficking to the
possibility of being granted citizenship for those who are
stateless,” the cardinal observed. On the contrary, he noted, it is
occurring more and more frequently that refugees are subjected to
confined detention, interment in refugee camps, and having their
freedom to travel and their right to work restricted.

“It
would be very different if their recognized and declared rights were
properly respected. After all, the States have established and
ratified these convention to ensure that individuals' rights do not
remain just proclaimed ideals or commitments that are subscribed to
but not honoured. … The Church, for her part, is convinced that the
pastoral care for all persons who, in various ways, are involved in
forced migration is a collective responsibility, as well as [the
responsibility] of each individual believer. … In close connection
to moral values and the Christian vision, we mean to save human
lives, to restore dignity to persons, to offer hope, and to give
adequate social and communal responses. Letting ourselves be
challenged by the presence of refugees, asylum seekers, and other
persons who have been forcibly displace compels us to go out of our
closed world, which is familiar to us, toward the unknown, in
mission, in the courageous witness of evangelization,” the prelate
concluded.

Cardinal
Sarah then referred to the four million displaced persons within
Syria, noting the 80,000 deaths, in less than two years, that have
been “collateral effects” of the conflict. In this regard he
observed that, up until the 1950's, in war there was a proportion of
1 civilian victim to 9 military casualties while today that amount
has been inverted and dozens of thousands of people are in flight,
“in the attempt to, at least, save their lives”.

He
also referenced the population of the Sahel region of Africa,
condemned to hunger because of drought, likening the situation to
that in the American states that have recently been hit by tornadoes.
He emphasized that, “at whatever latitude, the fight against
against natural catastrophes is absolutely unequal and gives a sense
of how humanity is at the mercy of nature instead of being its
responsible custodian.” The cardinal did not overlook those who,
even in Europe, are unemployed and condemned to “a 'structural
poverty', who pay the price of political choices with their own
lives”. Many of these persons chose the path of emigration,
unleashing the “phenomenon of a flight of [intellectuals], which
further and permanently impoverishes their country of origin”.

In
this state of things “the Church intervenes in different ways
according to her ability, mainly thanks to the worthy work of her
charitable organizations and their volunteers”. But “charity,
first of all, is wed to the individual … charity isn't a window or
a register. Whoever is in need must be able to find a good Samaritan
whose heart beats with theirs because they are made alike and because
[the good Samaritan] serves Christ [in serving their neighbour in
need].” In the same way, charity “has a plural dimension: the
refugee, the impoverished, the suffering need a network of ecclesial
support that embraces and assimilates them … recognizing the
dignity of the person and making them again feel part of the human
family, respecting their identity and their faith” because “the
Christian community is called to live the ecclesial dimension of
charity”.

Vatican
City, 6 June 2013
(VIS) – The Pontifical Council “Cor Unum” called a meeting,
from 4-5 June, of the Catholic charitable agencies that are working
to combat the crisis in Syria. Around 25 representatives of local
churches, charitable agencies working in the region, institutional
donors from the Catholic world, the Holy See, and the Apostolic
Nunciature in Syria gathered to reaffirm the continuity of their
commitment and to renew the Holy Father's appeal that all violence
cease and that paths of dialogue and reconciliation, based on respect
for all, be opened.

The
local Churches have responded concretely to the population, both in
Syria and the entire region, from the beginning of the conflict. More
than 400,000 persons are regularly supported, without discrimination,
by humanitarian aid to the cost of more than 25 million Euro.
Testimonials confirm the extent of the tragedy: almost 7 million
people who need humanitarian assistance, more than 4.5 million
forcibly displaced persons, and an ever-increasing number of persons
seeking security outside of the country's borders.

A
more careful analysis of the needs in this area have revealed that,
with the onset of summer, the risk of epidemics in the affected
population—with pregnant women, children, the elderly, and the
disabled in particular jeopardy—will certainly increase along with
shortages of medicines and aid.

In
the face of this alarming situation, the Pontifical Council “Cor
Unum” has launched an appeal on behalf of all the agencies involved
to economically support the humanitarian efforts and the search for
peace, in the hopes of rebuilding a country that has been torn and
destroyed by the conflict.

The
international community must also provide more support to the
countries that are receiving refugees and to humanitarian operations
there, in order to be able to respond to their growing needs. The
international community's mediation efforts, even if more decisive in
respect to previous months, still seem insufficient. Thus the risks
are increasing that the conflict in Syria might become another
endless war in which the first victims are defenceless civilians, who
are often treated as targets in the “useless massacre” of this
ongoing violence.

Vatican
City, 6 June 2013
(VIS) – According to a joint communique released today, “the
Bilateral Permanent Working Commission between the Holy See and the
State of Israel met [yesterday], 5 June 2013, at the Vatican, at the
Plenary level to continue negotiations pursuant to the Fundamental
Agreement Art. 10 paragraph 2.”

“The
meeting was headed by Msgr. Antoine Camilleri, under-secretary for
the Holy See's Relations with States and by Mr. Zeev Elkin, M.K.,
deputy minister of Foreign Affairs of the State of Israel. The
Commission welcomed the two new heads of the delegations, and
acknowledged the contribution of Ambassador Bahij Mansour to the
negotiations and wished him success in his new position. The
negotiations took place in a thoughtful and constructive atmosphere.
The Commission took notice that significant progress was made and the
parties committed themselves to accelerate negotiations on the
remaining issues, and look forward to an expedited conclusion in the
near term.”

“The
Parties have agreed on future steps and to hold the next Plenary
meeting by December 2013 in Jerusalem.”

Vatican
City, 6 June 2013
(VIS) – Today the Holy Father appointed Fr. Lionginas Virbalas,
S.J., as bishop of Panevezys (area 13,000, population 390,000,
Catholics 320,000, priests 98, religious 76), Lithuania. The
bishop-elect, previously rector of the Pontifical Russian College of
St. Therese of the Child Jesus in Rome, Italy, was born in Birzai,
Lithuania, in 1961 and was ordained a priest in 1991. Since
ordination he has served in several academic, pastoral,
institutional, and diocesan level roles, most recently as: consultor
of the Jesuit Provincial Curia in Lithuania (2003); adjunct secretary
general of Lithuania's Episcopal Conference (2005-2009); and pastor
of St. Casimir parish in Vilnius (1997-2005 and again from
2009-2010). He succeeds Bishop Jonas Kauneckas, whose resignation
from the pastoral care of the same diocese the Holy Father accepted,
upon having reached the age limit.